In this weekend's You're a Star final, voters will decide who sings for Ireland in the Eurovision, but can we pick a winner, asks Shane Hegarty.
It's that time of the year again, when three acts face off for a chance to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest. This year, two bands and a duet compete to be the next Chris Doran. They will then head off to Kiev in May hoping not to become . . . well, the next Chris Doran.
After he came second from bottom in 2004, with a paltry seven points given by one country (Britain), there were calls for a shake-up of the selection process. We'll get an idea of how much has been learnt when the songs are revealed tonight. The three acts are singing siblings Donna and Joseph McCaul, girl group Jade and Corrs-alikes The Henry Girls, who come complete with a Jim Corr-type fella. Each act has been handed a song plucked from more than 200 submitted. Whether or not any of those songs will be a thumping disco number to be matched with sexy costumes and a dancing chorus of dozens is being kept under wraps until tonight's show, although RTÉ says that the songs will be tailored to the acts and might have an Irish twist.
Yet, You're a Star goes into its final weekend faced with suggestions that its star is in the descendant. Ratings are low and the talent seems lower. A year after RTÉ vowed that Ireland would never again send crooning cannon fodder to the explosive pop extravaganza that is Eurovision, the only sound that can be heard above the flat notes and bland performances of the You're a Star acts is the gnashing of teeth from Eurovision veterans.
Bill Hughes, television producer and former Popstars judge, recently bemoaned the "tribal voting" that is leading to mediocre acts getting through. Linda Martin, a Eurovision winner and former judge on You're a Star, agrees that we are being led to Eurovision obscurity by bad acts, poor judges and campaign voting.
"Ireland is filled with so much talent, in rock and pop music, but by Jaysus You're a Star is not indicative of the standard in this country," she says. She adds that whether you loved or hated him, Louis Walsh's presence in previous years at least attracted a certain level of talent, but that now "good singers and dancers with years of experience won't audition alongside those whose only experience is singing at their mother's table".
This year's judges, she says, have not stopped the rot. She's fond of radio DJ Dave Fanning but "he has sneered at the Eurovision thing, and you can't take the cheque and then sneer at it". Like Hughes, she believes that the public voting system is badly flawed. For most of each winter, it seems, shops and lampposts of Ireland are festooned with campaign posters with more colour than the acts they promote.
"There are people with more active campaigns, maybe with a manager and more disposable income pushing them forward," she says. "This is why real talent has fallen by the wayside."
She thinks that an ethnic number, like the Turkish winner of a couple of years back, could be the way forward. But, having appeared as a guest judge recently, her caustic observations then have not mellowed. Could we find an act to make it through the semi-final? "Miracles can happen."
RTÉ IS UNDERSTANDABLY defensive about the show. "I wouldn't share that pessimism," says commissioning editor Kevin Lenihan, who adds that the plans for a new show were being formulated as the votes came in - or didn't, in our case - during last year's Eurovision. He says that the aim was to bring diversity and a bit more polish to the acts and to take it away from the one guy and a guitar routine. "We have a range of acts and the interesting songs with a balance of a distinctive Irish flavour but that are also modern. I think when people see the performances on Saturday and Sunday they'll see it's all quite different than before."
You're a Star has lost around 200,000 viewers, down from 650,000 at this time last year, but RTÉ points out that it has moved it to an earlier time on a Sunday evening to make way for Fair City - to a slot when fewer people are watching anyway. This has also affected the telephone voting numbers, although it probably remains lucrative for RTÉ, which won't release figures on how much it makes from the phone voting. It has always discounted campaign voting as inconsequential given the volume of calls made.
But Lenihan, who has been involved in picking Eurovision acts for many years, points put that the show is still a success.
"It's worth remembering that the pre-You're a Star process of the National Song Contest and Eurosong were languishing for six or seven years with no great interest in it," he says. "It's great that people get worked up on Liveline about it because it shows it has revitalised interest in the process and in the show itself."
This weekend's finalists will be competing for a chance to get us out of this year's semi-final, in which Ireland must slum for the first time. Ten acts out of 26 will make it to the final. Seeing as plan B has been deployed already, is there a plan C if Ireland fails to get out of that group?
"Well, I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get the result," says Lenihan. And finally, he scotches one of those perennial conspiracy theories: "We do want to do quite well at Eurovision and to win it if possible. People often say that we want to make sure we don't win, but believe me, anyone who's ever been involved at any level with a Eurovision wants to be involved again." How long they will have to wait remains the big question.
The You're a Star final results will be decided in RTÉ1 programmes tonight at 6.30pm and 9.25pm and tomorrow at 6.30pm and 9.25pm